My version of the "Day of the Rascal" build from this site

I have made and mounted the dovetail bases. I can finally try to get out and shoot it.

I will probably remake these bases once I get access to a mill, but the drill press version came out good enough to work for now.

I bet you thought I was gone.

I now have a thing that looks like a lathe and some tooling, but no driver. I've been messing with it a bit to up my game beyond the "I've watched some videos" level before I do something dumb like thread the muzzle crooked.

I re-made the striker. Now the hole is actually in the middle, the front face is more square than "looks good from your house", and the diameter fits the inside of the bolt better. I also noticed that the first one had some marks in the face from hitting the firing pin so I put a light heat treat on this time.

The old one is on the right, and the new one has the nice dark blue heat treat on the left.

OK, got that step done.

The muzzle threaded and just kissed with my 11* crown cutter. Then reblued.


I found that my problem drilling was that the part work hardened because the toy lathe doesn't have enouh torque to run at the correct speed for drilling 15/32. I managed to anneal the part and drill it on the drill press. Then hand tapped it with the tap follower in the drill press. Then I made a male thread mandrel on the lathe to screw the part on to and turn the outside to match the thread. Cleaned it and put it on the stove for a warm and cold blued it.


I had to drill on the press and then turn down on the mandrel for the threaded part of the fake can and I did the same for a second part that I then (after making a boring bar small enough) bored out to .008 bigger than the barrel 4 inches back from the threads. This is so it doesn't rub and ruin the bluing. The size difference also allows for one wrap of black electrical tape as a protector and damper to stop vibration. I made the fake can 8 inches long from 3/4 inch emt conduit. That size and the 4 inches set back on the barrel give the correct proportions as in the film even though I have a 16+ inch barrel and the film seems to have a 12 inch barrel. I used HCl to burn off the galvanization, and TIG to attach the center threaded bit and the back end cap. From the muzzle forward is completely empty and not capped to be sure it can't possibly reduce sound. And it doesn't.

Thanks. I find that when cold bluing you should evenly heat the part to the point where you can't quite hold on to it, although you shouldn't be actually touching it for skin oil reasons, that's just a WAG temperature reference. Obviously it has to be perfectly clean first, and the heating can't transfer any contaminates. Then use 100% cotton Q-tips or balls to apply the blue. When the whole part is colored, do a second coat that might involve some light scrubbing to get the color even. Then give it a few seconds to work. If it is drying off right away it's a bit too hot. Then thoroughly rinse in cold water. Completely dry it right away. Use more gentle heat and blowing if needed. Finally, generously coat with gun oil.

I don't recall where I read that slight heating helps, but whoever it was, hit that nail.

I wouldn't say you need to cut yours down. We are each making our own grown-up toy inspired by the same source. If a museum needed an exact copy of the original, then that would be different, but we're just having fun challenging ourselves to make a thing.